Page 34 of The One Night Dash
Make it count.
It punches me in the chest, hard and deep. And lower—yeah, it hits there, too. The kind of ache no cup or jock can dull.
“You good?” Theo Rivera, our center, asks as he takes position.
“Let’s make this count.” I tap his fist.
Koa’s in position, left wing, jaw set, leaning into the intimidation only players of his stature can bring to this game before the puck even drops. Me? I take my spot, right wing, stick down, heart hammering.
Behind us, Deacon Moretti slams his stick once against the post, his way of saying,I’ve got your backs. Don’t make me bail your asses out early.
The puck drops.
Theo wins the draw, snapping it back with that speed he’s known for, and I’m already moving, blades cutting deep into the ice. Koa scoops it, muscles his way past the blue line, and I break wide, ready for the feed.
The play’s tight, fast. Theo threads through traffic like he’s got the puck coming his way, drawing defensemen just enough to open a lane. Koa flicks it my way, and the puck kisses the tape of my stick.
I don’t think—I just fire.
The slap echoes, the puck screaming toward the net, and in that heartbeat before it hits the goalie’s glove, all I hear is her voice.
Make it count.
And then the fucker drops it.
Brooklyn 1- Utah -0
NINE
NOELLE
After Hildy came in yesterday,another college student, this one from Hunter, walked in. Danny’s an English major with a beat-up leather messenger bag and a voice that could lull anyone into buying poetry. He practically vibrated with excitement when I showed him the poetry section and asked for input on how to improve it. He asked if I’d ever consider having a poetry contest or would possibly allow readings here once a month if he organized them like he did at the place he was looking to quit due to the fact that he has never seen his boss, who is rude to everyone who comes in and actually booed someone at the last reading night he will ever schedule, open a book.Hired immediately.
Priya and Andi are two of the college students who came to buy books for the literary program. They both need to work enough hours to pay for their coffee and book addiction. Ten to fifteen hours a week will do. Priya noticed we had Austen in two different sections before I did. Anyone who spots that in under ten minutes is someone I want watching over my shelves. Andi, a book blogger on social media, asked if I would mind if she used my shelves as props during her breaks, provided she wouldshout out the place. Um, hell yes. If all goes well, I may ask her to take over our social media accounts.
Sofie came back this morning with files; she’d done her own reference checks since I didn’t. They all passed with flying colors. I knew they would.
Thanks to that Help Wanted ad, I have four new qualified part-time employees, and all of them are here today because Angie talked me into training them all at once.Danny is perched on a stool behind the register, talking a customer into a poetry collection like he’s selling stock options. Hildy is already reorganizing the biographies—bless her precision-loving heart. Priya and Andi are chatting up a pair of teens, pulling YA titles with the kind of enthusiasm that makes me want to cry.
I’m equal parts happy and worried. Pembrooke Books is paid for, but the taxes and insurance are incredibly high, a mortgage of its own. I don’t want my dream to fail, and now I have people who talk about books the way I do, and love written words the way I do, and I pray I don’t fail them and myself, too. But Angie, who knows how apprehensive I have been, keeps whispering sales totals as the hours tick by, to settle my soul, and they are not little numbers. In fact, the numbers by two were twice what they were yesterday. And yes, Angie told me that meant the wages were already covered for all four for their entire shift.
I know it won’t be like this every day, but if this is a Wednesday, which is traditionally slow, I can only imagine how the weekend will go. But imagining it will have to do, since I plan to leave tomorrow for Lauren and Louie’s wedding in Greenwich.
In between all of this, while the shop was busy, Angie asked if I should be writing, and that’s when my phone rang, and I saw Dash Sterling was video calling me.
“Why are you calling me?”
He smiled in that magnificent way only a man like Dash Sterling and romance heroes do and said, “I wanted a front-row seat.”
“To what?”
The dress isin the bag beside me. It is something I would have never ever picked out for myself, and had the whole bookstore not been full of people looking at me, and the sweetest woman named Elena, so excited to see me in the dress, I would have hung up on him. I would have also absolutely not worn the dress. It’s too much … and then I saw the shoes.
When I sent the girls a pic, crickets, not one response. I came up with a hundred excuses in thirty minutes to send regrets or just not show up … until Sofie, Nalani, and Claudia, carrying Savannah, burst through the doors.
My snuggle time with Savannah not only calmed me but made me realize I would never want any future children of mine to see me the way I was behaving, like I didn’t deserve to dress up like this from time to time or deserve to feel … pretty.
By the time they left, I had a hair, makeup, and nail appointment three hours before the wedding, a KET girl from Fairfield College was coming to my hotel with her arsenal to work her magic. Magic that Andi found reel after reel on IG, and Sofie set up. She wouldn’t tell me the cost, just that she got the KET sister discount. Everything will be perfect.
